Wednesday, June 11, 2014

(RFE) - A court in Moldova has fined an Orthodox bishop for publicly insulting members of the country's gay community and ordered him to publicly apologize.

The court ruled on June 9 that Bishop Markel of Balti and Falesti has to pay 10,000 leus ($710) to the GenderDoc-M organization as compensation for moral damages and an additional 12,000 leus ($850) to cover trial expenses.

GenderDoc-M represents the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in Moldova.

In September 2012, Markel publicly called for barring LGBT community members from working in schools, catering services, and medical institutions, citing as the reason that "92 percent of them are AIDS-HIV patients."

The statement sparked protests among gay-rights defenders in Moldova.

Although homosexual relations were decriminalized in Moldova in the 1990s, antigay sentiments remain high in the country.

7 comments:

You may like it or not, in Europe the Human Rights are indivisible. Moldova is on the way to become a member of the European Family and is no more part of the Soviet Union or the socalled "Holy Russia".

Seemed like a legitimate outcome. Perhaps the fine should have been bigger or some community serivce toward the LGTB community. The Bishop should be more careful with what he says. No one should be denied a job because they are gay.

If a Christian Heirarch is persecuted for preaching the truth about Godly sexuality and those acts that deviate from it, then God bless him. This, however, does not qualify for that. So, shame on the Bishop. It is one thing to uphold the moral teaching of the Church, but quite another to use such falsehoods as a scare tactic to incite fear and hatred.

Even if his ridiculous assertion that 92% of homosexual persons were HIV/AIDS patients were true, would that not call for compassion? Many diseases can be contracted through sexual contact; that is no reason to try and use them as a weapon against those who are afflicted with them. Real Christians, on the contrary, reach out to them, speaking the truth in love, and seeking to lessen their suffering or stigma, praying for them and urging them to "sin no more."

"The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide."